Absolution
by Guenelyn
Summary: It is a reversal of roles so profound that it overcomes my guilt for a moment." Who's there to comfort Ranger when it all becomes too much? Babe.


Disclaimer: Janet owns everything, I just take pleasure in borrowing her world. I always give it back…well, mostly…

Spoilers: None that I know of, but through 14 to be safe.

A/N: So, this is a oneshot that popped into my head and wouldn't leave. It's kind of angsty; I guess that's just the mood I've been in lately. There is a character death, but it's an OC, so it shouldn't be too upsetting for you. It's very "stream of consciousness" writing so please ignore the lack of complete sentences.

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The smell of death clings to me. It is on my clothes, in my hair, rubbed deep into the pores of my skin. It is all around me.

My hands are sticky with dried blood. The thought of whose blood; my man; so young. I want to puke.

It shouldn't have gone down like that. It should never have happened like that.

So much blood. So much death.

I need a shower. I need ten showers. I need tens years worth of showers to rid myself of this feeling.

I can't make it back to Haywood. Can't possibly make it to my house. The Batcave. I want to smile, but I grimace instead.

I find myself pulling into her parking lot. Sitting, watching her dark windows, trying to pull myself together. It would frighten her to see me like this. She's never seen this side of me. I've never let her.

I'm up the stairs and unlocking her apartment before I can make myself leave.

The door shuts softly behind me and I slide the locks back into place.

I am silent as I move through the dark rooms to her bedroom. She is asleep. Alone under the covers_. My babe_. Her pale skin is luminescent in the moonlight filtering through the curtains. I take a deep breath and let it out on a sigh.

I want to sit in the chair in the corner and just watch her until my heart has stopped pounding and the roiling in my stomach has eased. I've done it before. I've done it often. Too often if I'm being completely honest with myself.

But tonight is different. Tonight I have his blood on my hands like macabre finger-paint, and death clings to me like a second skin.

I can't be here with her like this. I can't risk her exposure to the darkness. And yet, I can't leave.

I don't want to wake her, but I need to be clean. Need to be rid of the blood and the stench.

I move silently to her bathroom, leaving the lights off. I strip mechanically, leaving my clothes in a neat pile on her bathmat. I'll buy her a new one later.

I turn the water on hot. The hottest I can get it. I step under the spray.

It's not hot enough. I want it hotter, but it's as hot as it will get.

I reach blindly and my hand encounters a bottle. I pop the cap and the smell tells me that it's Bulgari; the same kind that I use. I want to smile at that, but the smile eludes me.

I pour some on her loofah. I'll buy her a new one of those, as well. I scrub.

I scrub long and hard and still I smell their death on me like some sick perfume.

I scrub harder.

The door creaks open and a light flicks on. I squint against its glare.

Her voice reaches me, soft and sweet and timid.

"Hello?" _My Stephanie_.

I want to answer her, to allay her fears, but my throat won't work and when I open my mouth nothing comes out.

"Ranger?"

How she knows is beyond me, but the fact that she does makes me want to grin again.

"What are you doing here, Ranger? It's after three in the morning."

Again, I want to speak, but all that emits from between my lips is a garbled sort of groan.

I scrub harder.

I hear her moving, see her shadow creep closer, then her small, pale hand is tugging the shower curtain aside.

She gasps.

I glance down, expecting to see blood dripping off of me, or some oily black film coating my skin. What I do see makes me pause in my scrubbing. My skin is red and raw. Why hadn't I noticed that?

She shuts off the water with one hand and grabs a towel with the other. Then she's prying the loofah from my grasp and tugging my arm to get me out of the tub.

"What are you doing?" She asks gently.

She has the towel in her hands, using it to blot the water from my skin. She is so gentle, so caring. All I can do is stare down at her in amazement. _My Steph_.

"Ranger?"

She catches my face in her hands and tilts my head down until I encounter her sparkling blue eyes.

"Ranger, what is it?"

I manage to mutter three words.

"I need you."

She sets the towel aside and pulls me into the bedroom. She sits me on the side of the bed.

"I'm here, Ranger. Now, tell me why you were scrubbing yourself raw in there."

I don't answer, can't. All I can do is sit and marvel at her beauty, her innocence.

She stands slowly and moves away from me. Has she seen something in my eyes that has frightened her?

She should be afraid of me. She has no real idea of what I'm capable of.

But she simply goes to one of her drawers, takes something out, and brings it back to me.

She holds up a pair of black silk boxers.

"They're yours," she states.

And they are. I wonder briefly where she got them.

Then she's kneeling before me, lifting first one foot, then the other. My hands find her hair. It is soft and silky and warm. I thread my fingers through it.

She urges me to stand and I do so long enough for her to pull the boxers up over my hips.

Her hands on my shoulders urge me back down and her hair slips from my grasp. I mourn the loss of contact.

She kneels back down in front of me and peers up into my face. I want to cry at the look of concern there, but I haven't allowed myself to cry in nearly fifteen years, and the tears stay obediently out of reach.

"What happened?" She whispers.

I catch her face in my hands and stroke my thumbs up and down her cheeks. _My woman_.

"Takedown," I mutter, "gone bad." I close my eyes and focus on the feel of her soft skin beneath my fingers. "So bad."

Her hands flutter over my shoulders, my chest, my abdomen.

"Are you okay?" She asks on a high, panicked note.

I nod sharply.

"Then what is it?"

"Jimmy," I say. It hurts to say his name. It shouldn't have happened; it shouldn't have gone down like that.

"The new kid?" She asks.

I nod.

"What about him?"

"Gone," I say.

She blinks twice and then she's in my arms, right where I want her, stroking my hair, my back, murmuring incoherent nothings into my ear.

"I'm sorry, Ranger," she whispers. "I'm so sorry."

"My fault," I say. "He wasn't ready." A dry sob wracks my body and she holds me closer. "So young."

She's silent as I process _this_, her in my arms, holding me, comforting _me_. A reversal of roles so profound that it overcomes my guilt for a moment.

Never before have I come to her like this, so open, so vulnerable. Never before have I trusted her to just take it all and help me make it go away.

I do now.

I need her.

And not just physically. Not just the way I've always told her I need her.

I need her here, in my arms, in my life, holding me, comforting me like a small child afraid of the thunderstorm, and not judging me for my weakness.

I lay back on the bed, bringing her with me and she doesn't fight it, doesn't pull away.

I watch her eyes as I roll us so that she's beneath me, as my lips descend and she accepts my kiss.

We move together in a rhythm older than time, in a rhythm more perfect than I have ever found with any other woman. Lips and tongues. Hands and hips.

I pull back. She gasps for breath.

"Please," I whisper.

"Yes," she sighs.

And I'm on her again. Clothes fly. Bodies collide. Souls coalesce.

I lose myself in her. I lose the guilt in her. I fall completely and allow her warmth and her light to absorb me and guide me back to myself.

We're slow and rushed. We're gentle and rough. We're loving and heated. We contradict ourselves. We contradict the universe. It is so right that I never want it to end.

But it does. It always does. My heart and lungs and soul are torn asunder as she flies apart beneath me. Her body grips mine so tightly, as if it never wants to let me go. I wish it didn't have to. _Mine_.

I follow her into oblivion.

When I come out the other side, she's smiling gently up at me. Her fingers move through my hair, her eyes tell me what her lips don't dare.

I open myself to her and allow the same emotions to show on my countenance.

She gasps. _My love_.

I roll, pulling her with me and hold her tightly, so tightly. Never tight enough. I want to pull her into me. I want her light inside me always, protecting her as she protects me from the demons. _My light_.

The guilt isn't gone, but it has been quieted and I breathe deeply of her scent as my brain finally begins to shut down.

Her fingers are soft as she strokes my jaw. I feel a small kiss on my chest.

"Sleep now, Ranger. I'm not going anywhere."

My last thought as I drift into unconsciousness is that I might just hold her to that.

_My life_.

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A/N: Thanks so much for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!


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